It’s a big day for Microsoft and its (soon to be even larger) cadre of dedicated developers: Starting today, Microsoft is making the core parts of its .Net framework open-source, and cross-platform on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Microsoft is also committing to adding Android and iOS support in the upcoming Visual Studio 2015. This is a bold move that will attempt to cement .Net, C#, and Visual Studio as the dominant development platform across Windows, Linux, Android, iOS, and Mac — and, well, it might just work.

Earlier today, the latest version of Ubuntu was released to the public. Version 14.10 — dubbed “Utopic Unicorn” — doesn’t bring much to the table in terms of new features, but it does mark an important anniversary. Ten years ago this week, the very first version of Ubuntu was released, and began the march to a more user-friendly Linux desktop. So, is this release something worth celebrating?

A new instruction set by the original creator of MIPS aims to reinvent the ultra-low power, high-efficiency processor — and to do so with an architecture that’s fundamentally open and available to anyone who wants to build a chip. Can that approach succeed in the modern era?

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